Ah, Love, this is Fear
by OrangeScript
Summary: Senior Auror James Potter feels like he is always one step behind. But in these dark times, catch-up is a dangerous game to play. Join him as he attempts to unravel the sinister threads of treachery and the even stranger puzzle that is his son. Can this war be won? Alternate Universe/Dimension Travel ft. Slytherin!Harry & Canon Harry and Gang, like you've never seen them before!


**Hello!**

 **I know I've been absent from the realm for quite a while, but RL kinda ran me over with a truck (figuratively speaking). Anyway, this is something a little different that I'm trying, in honor of the recent 20th anniversary of HP.**

 **Title is from the Robert Hass poem. Disclaimer: I own nothing. Heads up! There is some strong language. I think I even drop an F-bomb. If this offends you, I'm sorry. Feel free to skip over the section where James is kinda freaking out. Don't worry, I won't be dropping them left and right!**

 **If this story is something you guys are interested in seeing more of, please review! I'd love to hear your thoughts! Flattery doesn't hurt either ;)**

 **Love and Kisses,**

 **OrangeScript**

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"Lils, I'm home!" James Potter stomped his feet and brushed half-heartedly at his hair with one hand to rid himself of the remnants of ash and floo powder from his commute. His head ached something awful. Trudging tiredly out of the fireplace in the living room towards the kitchen, he flung his cloak, briefcase, and Auror badge onto the worn sofa. It had been a long, horrible day, and he just wanted to see his wife and kids. "Lily?" He paused in the open archway of his kitchen, and then smiled wanly at the sight of his wife, slumped at the kitchen table, her dark red hair obscuring her face and the papers scattered across the tabletop, her cheek pillowed in the open pages of a book as she snored rather loudly.

He chuckled to himself, enjoying the adorable picture of his dozing wife, before pushing the sleeves of his uniform shirt up and turning dutifully to the cupboards to attempt to construct the evening meal.

When Lily woke, sooner than he would have hoped, he was elbow-deep in a large bowl of spaghetti. He grinned at her as she stirred, stretched, and peeled off a piece of parchment from her cheek, before turning her attention to her husband.

She took in his predicament and then rolled her eyes at him, though the corners of her lips ticked up slightly. "What've you gotten yourself into, Mr. Potter?" She demanded, her fond tone belying the stern look she threw his way.

His grin turned sheepish as his hands continued to squelch around in the spaghetti. "Dropped my wedding ring," he explained, shrugging defensively in answer to her incredulous look.

She pulled her wand out of her waistband and pointed it at his spaghetti, " _Accio James's ring!"_ And the ring popped out from the depths of the spaghetti bowl, spattering James with sauce as it broke the surface, before soaring to Lily's outstretched hand. He blinked in surprise at the gob of red sauce on one lens of his glasses, and Lily laughed, suddenly in front of him, pulling off his glasses and then kissing him on the cheek, right on top of another splash of sauce. She ran her tongue over her lips critically, her blurry face laughing at him as he squinted at her, hands still buried in spaghetti.

"Not bad," she declared, before re-settling his glasses on his face, _scourgify_ ing them, and then rewarding him with another kiss, this time right on his lips.

James smiled into her lips and eagerly leaned forward to deepen it, when he was interrupted by a childish shriek- "EWWW!"

They broke apart instantly to regard the scandalized face of their newly-arrived six-year-old.

"EWW!" Franklin repeated, looking up at them with wide eyes, and James winked at him.

"Move, Squirt," sounded from behind the little boy, and before either parent could protest, he was shoved unceremoniously out of the way, and they were looking at a tall, gangly teenage girl in a worn Harpies jersey and keeper gloves, her auburn hair pulled haphazardly into a braid. "Hi Dad," she grinned, and James couldn't help but grin back at his only daughter.

"Hey Champ."

"Ivy Potter, apologize to your brother this instant!" Lily ordered.

Ivy only rolled her eyes and then tousled her brother's hair good-naturedly. "Sorry, Squirt," she said easily, before observing her father's activities with a quirked eyebrow. "Killing our dinner for us, Dad?"

Franklin's eyes grew round again as he stuck his face out from behind his mother's leg. "DAD DON'T KILL THE SPAGHETTI!" He demanded.

Chuckling, James withdrew his hands from the spaghetti bowl and moved to the sink to wash the sauce from his hands. Ivy followed him immediately, and he listened to her over his shoulder as she chattered away about a new Quidditch move she'd been working on.

"Ivy, where's Harry?" Lily interrupted, joining them at the sink and then fussing with her daughter's messy braid, even as Ivy scrunched up her nose in fond impatience, and Franklin trailed behind his mother with an arm wrapped around her leg and a thumb in his mouth.

Neither parent missed the way the expression on Ivy's face darkened considerably.

"Holed up in his room, I expect," she answered crossly.

"Had a row, did you?" James asked, concerned. His eldest son had always been a bit... _different_ , the only Slytherin in a house full of Gryffindors, undeniably intelligent, like both of his parents, but quieter, colder, calculating, and withdrawn. His demeanor and behavior sometimes unnerved even his own parents. Of course, James couldn't blame him, for anything, really- how could he? To this day he still didn't know what depths of hell his eldest son had emerged from, what terrible things he'd seen and been through, before being returned to their doorstep, eyes large and lost, all those years ago.

"We don't even need to, anymore," Ivy answered quietly, turning from both of her parents and grabbing a stack of plates to set the table.

Lily and James shared a look, before Lily sighed, softly to herself, detaching Franklin from her leg. "I'll get him," she offered quietly, swinging her young son up into James's arms and kissing his rumpled hair absently before leaving through the archway.

James listened to her footsteps on the stairs as he settled Franklin on his hip, his brow furrowed as he thought of his eldest son and fought off the headache that had been haunting him all week. "Now, now, Little Man," he addressed his youngest, his voice gently scolding as he attempted to finagle his wedding ring on again while still holding his son. "What've we said about sucking your thumb like that?"

…

They were all seated with the spaghetti and garlic bread that James had made and a dish of green beans laid out on the table—Lily had smiled approvingly when she'd seen him set down the vegetables, and Ivy had scrunched up her nose in her trademark look of distaste—when Harry finally slipped into the dining room, walking to the far end of the table and slouching into the seat furthest, James couldn't help but notice, from James himself.

"Glad you could join us, Harry," James said, trying to make his voice sound pleasant.

Harry made no acknowledgment that he'd heard, his head bowed as he reached silently for a piece of garlic bread. Ivy rolled her eyes, chomping down on her own bread, and Lily looked up from where she was heaping green beans onto Franklin's plate to give her husband a sad, sympathetic smile.

"How was work, James?"

His mood instantly darkened, and he noticed Harry tense, from across the table.

James put down his fork, and, took off his glasses, suddenly feeling exhausted again as he kneaded his forehead in his hand, unconsciously mirroring the bowed posture of the son across from him.

"What is it, Dad?" Ivy asked in concern.

"It's not good," James sighed. "We've got a security leak—"

Lily and Ivy both made sounds of concern and dismay, and Franklin looked up at them all with vague inquisitiveness on his sauce-covered face, swinging his legs and slurping at his meal.

Only Harry was unmoving, still hunched over his plate, but, James noticed, the knuckles of the fists wrapped around his knife and fork were white.

"I'm in charge of figuring it out and fixing it. I've done everything I could think of," James said, scrubbing tiredly at his face. "Switched things up last minute, switched up teams, people, turned the place upside down and ripped everything apart trying to figure out the leak, but I just don't know—"

"Don't be an idiot, Dad."

Everyone startled when the voice issued from the far end of the table, and James looked up to meet Harry's face, pale and drawn, his green eyes burning with anger as he stared down his father.

"Think, damn it." Harry hissed, ignoring Lily's indignant reprimand. "Who was the common denominator? Who had access to the information every time?"

James blinked at his son, his astonishment starting to wean into anger— "No one." He snapped, returning his son's glare. "Don't you think I've asked myself that already? No one had access to the plans, the routes, the information, the switches, every time— _no one_!"

But Harry had raised a sardonic eyebrow, his lips twisted into an awful sneer, and James looked at him, confused, feeling like he was missing something very, very important. Abruptly he sat back, a sudden, terrible thought occurring to him—"No one except me."

Somewhere, Lily gasped, but James only had eyes for Harry, searching his son's face, desperately hoping he was wrong. "Harry, tell me it's not true," he demanded.

His son said nothing, but the ugly, twisted sneer was all the confirmation he needed.

James got to his feet abruptly, his chair falling behind him with a thud. Lily was saying something in a low tone, and Ivy was protesting, but it felt like they were far away. The blood was pounding in his ears and boiling in his veins as he stared at the boy across from him, suddenly struck with the thought that he didn't really know him at all. "We lost good people," he whispered, his voice dangerously low. "Merlin, Harry. Dedalus Diggle, Hestia Jones? Dora Tonks is still in the hospital!"

The windows were rattling, the dining table itself was trembling, the dishes on it clattering, and Harry hadn't moved, hadn't risen, still sat slouched across from him, smirking at his show of temper, and James truly felt, for the first time, absolutely out of control. Lily's sharp voice ordered Ivy to take Franklin upstairs, and James felt her grasp his arm, probably trying to get him to calm down, but he felt worlds away from her.

" _Is it true_?" He thundered. Harry cocked his head mockingly, and James lunged across the table.

Lily gasped, her hold on his arm tightening, her other hand scrabbling with the front of his shirt as she squeezed herself in front of him, trying to block the sight of Harry from him with her body as she pleaded with him, trying to get him to calm down.

Harry merely smirked, and James lost it.

"Let go of me, Lily," he growled, lunging, once again, for Harry, but Lily clung to him determinedly, blocking his path as he tried to force past her, trying to soothe him but only babbling in her panic.

In the chaos he'd missed the whoosh of the Floo and the hurried footsteps of two guests who, drawn to the sound of raised voices, had rushed to the kitchen.

"Prongs!"

" _Merlin, James_!"

He barely had time to react to the two new voices before he was tackled from behind and yanked from Lily's grasp, his two friends wrenching his arms behind his back.

He was shaking with rage, now, and he fought against their restraining holds.

"Stop it, Prongs," Sirius hissed in his ear, shaking him roughly. "Do you hear me? Cut it out. You're upsetting Lily."

It was true. Lily was crying, now, hugging herself, and normally this would have been more than enough to snap James out of whatever mood he was in, but he felt like he'd crossed to somewhere beyond where her tears could reach him. Looking at the smirking face of his son he could've been looking at a stranger. And he was angry; _Merlin_ , he was so fucking _angry_. Because this was his son, his beautiful, innocent, firstborn son, and they'd turned him into a stranger, a smirking Slytherin stranger on the wrong side of a goddamn war. And it was so fucking unfair, but _Merlin_ , he'd given Harry a pass for his entire life because it was his _baby_ , his _poor baby_ , but this was more than just his family. Merlin, people had lost their lives. Jones and Diggle, last week, and _Merlin, why?_

But all he could see was that goddamn smirk, and all he could think about was finding Hestia last week on patrol, lying bent and broken on the sidewalk, her robes all torn and bloody, and he felt a boiling rage flood through him, throbbing, pounding in his aching skull.

Across the room Harry slid back from the table, gracefully rising from his seat, and crossed the floor to stand before his shaking father. James felt Sirius and Remus tighten their holds on him.

" _Get out_." James hissed. " _GET OUT!_ "

But Harry just smiled, and leaned in very close, and said softly, so only James could hear. "Get out of your house? Or of your head?"

"No, Harry," Lily reached for their son, looking at James with wide, pleading eyes. "He doesn't mean it, do you, James?"

"Of course I mean it!" James roared. "Of course I fucking mean it! I won't have traitorous Death Eater scum under my-"

He felt his head whip to the side as a sharp pain bloomed in his cheek, and he swung his head back around to see Lily, her bright green eyes, so like Harry's, burning fiercely in her pale face, even as her lip trembled, and tears leaked from her eyes. "How dare you speak to our son like that?" She whispered, cradling the hand she'd slapped him with. " _How dare you?"_

"Have you got him?" James heard Sirius ask in a low voice from behind him.

After Remus's answering grunt, Sirius relinquished his hold on James and stepped out towards Harry: "Harry, c'mon, we'll stay at my place tonight until everyone's cooled down-"

Harry cut him off. "Thanks, Padfoot, but it's alright; I'll stay with Gin."

James watched as Harry reassured Sirius that he was, in fact, certain, before departing, Sirius walking him to the living room.

Remus loosened his grip. James knew he was still shaking, but he felt as if the temperature in the room had cooled several degrees, and when he breathed in, deeply, his head pounding as it had all week, he felt exhausted, like the fuel of his rage had burned off.

When he opened his eyes again, Sirius was reentering the kitchen. He met James's eyes with his own, grey and unreadable, before breaking the gaze and going over to Lily, who immediately and unhesitatingly burrowed herself into his welcoming arms.

James felt something in him break at the sight.

Sirius escorted Lily out of the kitchen, one arm around her shoulders, speaking quietly to her, and Remus finally released James entirely.

With a flick of his wand, Remus righted James's fallen chair, and with another, James felt his knees buckle and he fell into the chair with a plop.

Remus regarded him with a sympathetic expression, and then offered him a bar of chocolate, produced, seemingly, from nowhere.

James blinked at it, finally giving into the exhaustion and the throbbing in his head as he slumped back in his seat, feeling the rage and adrenaline of earlier well and truly ebb away.

"Tea?" Remus asked, already filling a kettle.

James just buried his head in his hands and nodded, feeling ancient.

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 **At the risk of sounding desperate... _Please review, I beg of thee._**

 **Anyway, a lot to mull over in this chapter, huh? What's Harry's problem? What's James's problem? (Yes, the man's got a temper, but are we really surprised? Like father like son, right? _coughcough Harry destroying Dumbledore's office after Sirius died coughcoughugh_ ) Anyway lemme hear your thoughts!**

 **Until Next Time,**

 **OrangeScript**


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